HoLlYwOoD!

Longtime friends of mine, Breanna and Scottie Chanson, and founders of Radiant Photography, called me a couple of months ago to create a Hollywood Hill cake for their California themed party. When Breanna described to me her excitement about the decor including star shaped cookies and fun California themed music, I knew the party's ambiance was going to be outstanding. She said the cake could be basic, as long as it fit the Hollywood Hill theme, and to "run with it". Those were the magic words that got me excited, and immedately my wheels were spinning with ideas. As I mentioned in a previous post, I love creative custom cakes that are not meant to look like cakes, the more creative and artsy I can get, the more fun it is for me to design. My sister and I had a great time sculpting, mixing colors, and finding different textures to make it look like a an outdoor landscape. To our surprise to less "neat" it looked, the better it looked. Such a fun cake to do, and if you were wondering about the "dirt" above and below the Hollywood sign, it's brown sugar :-)

Cupcake Tasting!

Today I began the quest of my cupcake tasting adventure. I have been collecting names of places I wanted to visit to get a feel for what flavors they're serving, pricing, ambiance, location, and most important, the taste of their cupcakes! I still plan on specializing in cakes, but I find that cupcakes are becoming more popular, I am getting more requests for them, and the flavors out there are getting even more creative! Who doesn't love a tiny little cake?

"Caketini"
So I traveled to two places today I had received recommendations about. The first one was in my own backyard, Caketini in the San Tan Village Mall. It was a perfect little stroll over from Brio where I had lunch with a friend. After some wonderful dining, we ventured over to this cute little shop on the North end of the plaza. I was very impressed with the ambiance when we walked in, very clean, pretty and not too busy looking in design. In addition to the cupcakes, they had a cake pop selection, and a display of a custom cake, which was very nice as well.

Now for the cupcakes- since I went there with the purpose of tasting different flavors, we loaded up with a Chocolate Raspberry, Red Velvet, and Carrot Cake cupcake as well as a Chocolate cake pop. my favorite was the Chocolate Raspberry, which was a moist, rich chocolate with Raspberry Buttercream frosting. I would love to know how they flavored their frosting because it didn't taste artificial. The flavor combination was great and had the perfect blend of both chocolate and raspberry. I also loved their Red Velvet and Carrot Cake cupcakes, and their Cake Pop. It appeared that the Cake Pop was made with a dark chocolate, it was very yummy and rich in taste, and they looked extremely elegant as well with a long lollipop stem and a bit of luster dust.

"Cupcakes"
My second tasting today was at Cupcakes, in North Scottsdale near the Borgata. I was recommended this shop by one of my best friends, who gave it raving reviews, which matched the reviews online. So I decided it was worth the trip with one of my friends to do a tasting. The location, near my previous digs in Scottsdale, was extremely convenient near some favorites of mine, Houston's, Humble Pie, Blanco Tacos, and Fashion Square Mall. The name, Cupcakes, is short and sweet, and there is no need to wonder what it means. The decor is creative, with their Food Network Cupcake Wars Display, Manequins they were asked to design for Barney's New York, which fit the cupcake theme and the many articles featuring their store lining the walls as you walk up to the cupcake counter. It is no secret this place has become very well-known locally, and after reading on the website, I found out it's been visited by many celebreties, giving them a great PR boost! You better beleive I was already jealous even before I tasted their delicious cupcakes.

After trying some more traditional flavors earlier in the day, I felt like venturing into some creative tastes.  With catchy names like "Momo", "Skinny Mini", and "Mimosa", I found myself asking about the flavors from none other than one of the shop owners herself behind the counter. After getting into conversation about the flavors I started to ask her questions about starting her business. She was super friendly and very open about their success story, sharing their experience with me. What great fortune these two sisters have seen in their first ever business, and immediately after college, I was very impressed.

Now back to the flavors =) I have a picture of the cupcakes I tried above (taken with my cell phone, not super high quality). The yellow one on the bottom left is the Skinny Mini- a lemon flavored vegan cupcake, the one on top is the Angel Food Cake June Special flavor, which is an angel food cake with chocolate buttercream frosting, the Mimosa, on the bottom right is an orange cake iced with champagne orange icing and dusted with gold luster dust. My favorite was to my surprise, the vegan cupcake, the "Skinny Mini". I am normally not a fan of lemon flavors, and also was expecting "vegan" to = "icky". I actually could not get enough of this lightly lemon flavored cupcake! It was super moist and had a great texture. Imagine a health conscious, yummy cupcake! The Anglel Food cupcake was my second favorite, reminding me slightly of a toasted s'more, minus the graham cracker. They had 9 more flavors to sample, and rotate some out daily and monthly, I will just have to come back soon to try more!


If you have a cupcake tasting recommendation, or would like to accompany me on one of these adventures, holla at me!

A Little Blue Blessing

The day before this cake was scheduled to arrive, hand-delivered by me to one of my best friend's April baby showers, I got a call letting me know she was in the hospital with early contractions. When shower day came, and Carlene was still in the hospital being observed, I decided to pay her a visit and bring a piece of the shower to her. We enjoyed some cake from a hospital room and kept praying her little one would be ok. Today she is enjoying a healthy full term pregnancy and looks forward to meeting her little guy soon! I am so happy to look back at her cake and remember what a blessing her baby boy is!

Birthday Love

One of my most giving and thoughtful friends, Heidi, contacted me a few weeks before her wedding shower, to let me know she not only wanted to support my business, but she wanted to order a double birthday cake for her soon-to-be sister-in-law and little sis, so we could sing them Happy Birthday at her wedding shower! What an amazing sister, that's what I call birthday love! 

Engagement Glitz!

I was so excited to hear that one of my very first roommates, Stefanie and her boyfriend Matt, recently got engaged. I was a bit intimidated to make her two tier, Lemon Raspberry cake when I was told her fiance is a chef, but was also very flattered when he loved it. Congrats Matt and Stef! Matt, you are getting an awesome roommate!

cake POPS!

Seventy five cake pops, and none were left after the official launch of PhoenixONE! If you are between the ages of 25-35 come check out this fun bi-weekly Tuesday night gathering, you WILL love it and every once in awhile there are some sweet incentives from the Cake Baketress!

BabyCakes'

I may have entered the niche market of baby shower cakes, being that they have comprised the majority of my orders since my initial cake sale. My sweet and talented party planning friend Rachael, ordered this fresh floral cake for her fabulous baby shower in the garden. The cake is decorated using the baby's initials, which was a classy alternative to piping his name out. I was also blessed, that one of my best friends and talented photographer Keira of Keira Grace Photography was snapping shots of the shower, and her camera and my cake had a chance to meet! Thanks Keira for the beautiful photo!

Sweet SweetHearts

I love this cake because I thought about it for about a month in advance, knowing I wanted to use a heart candy design and also use them to decorate. It being my first two tier cake I had ever constructed- I use the word constructed on purpose, I ended up working on it all day and not having enough time to work on the design i created. It was like icing on the cake though when I decided to quit my design work so that I could take it to the party where we ate it immediately! Vanilla with Chocolate Buttercream on Top, and the Cake Boss's Chocolate Cake and Chocoalate Fudge Frosting on the bottom. Mmmmm!

A Yummy Collaboration

When my friends Tara and Chris announced they were having a  James Bond themed dual birthday party, I instantly got excited about making them a cake. So I partnered with a fellow Baketress, Kimber Coonen, to design and bake a birthday cake for two of our besties. She had great ideas and is a seasoned cake-maker, so it was awesome working together! And I would say our cake quickly pulled a double O-seven!

Design it, Dream it, Bake it.

I think the most fun cakes I have made have been the unconventional ones. My first crack at a cake that wasn't supposed to look like a cake was for my friend Katherine, who left for serve at Homes of Hope in Fiji. It was also my second time working with fondant, which didn't work out, but I was able to improvise. It was then that I learned, no cake is perfect, but the art comes in being flexible when a design doesn't work out the way you planned it. Instead I used part fondant, and worked with the existing buttercream frosting to become part of the design. I'm glad i didn't give up on my suitcase cake, even though someone thought it was a coach purse, in the end, I was happy with it and it has lead me to pursue more adventurous designs! Anyone want a coach purse bday cake? I know how to make one.

A Couple of Patty-Cake Sisters

Meet my sister, Tara (left). I could not be telling you my story right now if it wasn't for our many late nights baking, multiple phone calls per day cake dreaming, her constant trips from Peoria to Gilbert to help her crazy sister who overbooked their cake schedule :) I love you sis, thanks for baking my first cake with me!

What do you want to be when you grow up?

I am realizing the older I get, that I am still figuring out the answer to this question, and yet, I had it most right the first time I was asked. Probably around age 5, I decided I wanted to be an artist. Several sketches, paintings, art classes and at-home craft projects later, I realized most of my friends wanted to be doctors or teachers or work for their family business. So, I found other things I enjoyed and slowly set aside the paint brush for writing assignments, and retired my smock for a business suit. Thankfully, I have always returned to art as an outlet, and whether i'm painting, crafting, or cake decorating, I am able to tune the rest of the world out and truly focus on what I'm doing. It's nothing close to the battle i've fought against writers block or the cups of coffee i've downed to stay focused at work, it's someting that comes more naturally to me.  So when I became obsessed with cake decorating, I realized it's no wonder, fondant isn't much different than sculpting a ball of clay and piping is much like the puff paint that graced many a neon t-shirt in third grade. Baking involves science, and decorating involves art. So who said my dream isn't practical? I'm practically in love with it in the form of deliciousness.